Okay, I'm about to get really really harsh. And, before that I do that, I wanna say something that literally everybody I have read or watched that has criticized this movie has said, and this includes those supposedly racist conservatives:
Iman Vellani is a pure joy to watch. I have never seen someone enjoy being a superhero so much as her. I wish her all the luck with her career in the world.
This movie is pure shit. My God, it hurt to watch this one. It's not as bad as Thor: Love and Thunder, which I couldn't even get through. But it's shit. The script is dumb, a good villain is wasted, the action is boring as hell, Brie Larson needs to get out of the MCU, and obvious fanbait to keep me watching has become actively resented, and just... Marvel can you please just stop?
So, the script is dumb. Captain Marvel, who murdered billions of people, hasn't been locked up for war crimes, nor does she turn herself in for having committed one of the greatest acts of manslaughter ever recorded... like you lost me right there. Right there I'm done. Why does the rest of the universe trust her? Why the hell does she have a singing husband on a silly planet of singing people? Why is the elephant in the room not acknowledged by anyone but the villain???
Oh, Captain Marvel feels bad about it? Her poor feelings are hurt??
Tough.
People have been imprisoned for life for a lot less.
And that's not where the script keeps being stupid. Why is our villainess, Dar-Benn, a villain??? There's this completely unnecessary mustache-twirling element added to a character who frankly didn't need it. Her planet, her people, are dying. There is absolutely no reason for her to go evil to be the antagonist. Quite the opposite! She's the only one with a sane complaint in the cast! Her going "I'll steal a sun and doom another planet and put someone else through what my people have been" makes no sense at all. If she cares about her people then, on some level, Dar-Benn cares. It would have been far more interesting to see her trying to take out Captain Marvel (RIGHTFULLY), only to relent when she realized that the destroyer of her planet could restore it. A lot could have been done with Dar-Benn to make her a more potent and interesting antagonist and just the sheer lack of imagination hurts.
The action is boring. No, it's not fun. Or even moderately interesting. This movie was clearly designed for a phone-addicted audience. And that's the most effort the action is getting from me, coz clearly it doesn't deserve more.
Brie Larson can be a fantastic actress. I've seen her try. I've seen her care about projects. When Brie Larson gets going in a role she can really dial in and turn her energy way up. And that is nowhere near this role. I can't even call it a character. Modern Captain Marvel is boring as hell, and required the Iron Man level of rehabilitation that the MCU originally gave him. And she didn't get it. She's just comic book Captain Marvel, which is... um.
Okay, quiet part out loud, most of the earlier MCU projects were improvements over what's honestly crap source material. Age of Ultron as a comic book event is awful. Just awful. Civil War is when the comics made character assassination cool. Secret Invasion is just shit.
NOTICE HOW MOST OF THIS IS TIED TO BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS????
Point is.
A lot of the MCU works coz they took good basic ideas from half-wit writers (don't balk, I'm complimenting Bendis's recent stuff by calling him a half-wit) and applied actual effort to them. Are these revolutionary or even vaguely high art ideas? Absolutely not, but they were fun, and popcorn cinema is a legit way to go. But in order to do popcorn cinema right you have to get good actors who care about the source material to play the hell out of the roles, stupidly competent writers who have to scrub the shit stains off diamond-quality ideas, and directors who love the source material enough to be critical of it and know they can do better.
And Brie Larson ain't got it.
The only soul in this production who does is Iman Vellani, and God she deserves so much better than this nonsense.
Also, I'm done with these post-credit scenes. Vellani's was fun coz it's two people who clearly like the source material just riffing off each other, but the alternate universe stuff... it's not working. It's just not. This is exactly where Marvel falls flat on its face, Exiles excepted, and Marvel needs to cut it out.
Please hire good writers and directors who truly love the source material and give Iman a story worth being so damned adorable over. Junk this phase crap, and just let us see Ms. Marvel scout out talent, have fun doing it, and go back to our fun popcorn flicks.
I know they're not going to do it.
But in my last screams of protest over a franchise that has clearly lost its soul I will not go out quietly.
Oh, there's one bright spot to this. Just one. I can see who the shills are now. Coz anyone who claims to like this trash is most definitely a shill. More and more the conservative right's critiques are looking downright prescient: the supposedly compassionate left reveals their true colors of pro-corporatist and totalitarian zombies, with the most they're able to summon being "this was fun!"...
Seriously? That's the best you can do? "It was fun" is the best you can do???
Dude, Iron Man was a lot more than fun. I'm not claiming it was the best movie ever, but it had heart. It had soul. Tony was driven to do what he thought was right, and to hell with everyone else. Everyone knew they had watched something special. The deniers were met with just raw joy. So they had to shut up. I've learned, slowly but surely, but that such joy is the key to defending controversial things. I used to argue with a lot of people about the merits of The Last Jedi. It doesn't go anywhere, coz people can find any reason to dislike something. So I just tell them that I found the movie so beautiful that it stunned me to silence. I tell them about my friend who called me in tears, because she found the whole movie deeply cathartic. That the movie had communicated something transcendent to the both of us, and it was that simple. The same with The Rise of Skywalker. I got a lot out of the movie, and part of the trick is to meet the angry with the very simple statement: "But it changed me. I'm sorry it didn't you" and to drop it from there. It's not something I'm terribly good at doing, but it is what needs to happen.
I hope they do right by her. She should be the new face of the MCU, backed by competent writers and directors, allowed to do what Doudney Jr. did. If there was any justice here that's what would happen. But that would be way too optimistic.
And "optimism is cowardice", as Spengler so correctly points out.
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